Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia) will celebrate the golden jubilee of its Dubai operations on Wednesday.

A ceremony will be held at Westin Dubai Mina Seyahi Beach Resort to mark the occasion with the support of Prince Fahd bin Abdullah, president of the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) and chairman of Saudia.

Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, president of Civil Aviation in Dubai and chairman of Emirates Airlines, Khaled Al-Molhem, director general of Saudia, and senior airline executives as well as industry experts and media persons will attend the event.

Various programs have been lined up for the ceremony, including a speech by Al-Molhem, screening of a documentary film on the airline’s history and achievements, and an exhibition highlighting Saudia’s development, services at sales offices, electronic and self-services, and progress of Dubai services during the past 50 years.

Prince Fahd will open Saudia’s new office in Dubai, which has been designed to cope with the airline’s marvelous development in services. The new office is located at Vision Tower, which overlooks Burj Khalifa, Dubai Governorate and Sheikh Zayed Street. Its design reflects Saudia’s new identity and image.

The new Dubai office houses the office of the general manager for Middle East and Gulf, administrative offices, training halls, finance department, sales and marketing departments and prayer hall.

The Kingdom’s national flag carrier launched its first flight to Dubai from Dhahran in March 1963, carrying just 48 passengers. It opened a new era in its international operations as the number of Saudia flights to Dubai increased to 74 weekly.

These flights are operated from Madinah, Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam. The number of passengers carried by Saudia annually between the two countries now exceeds 500,000.